I need to know. Exactly what is the Autonomous form and how is it used and in what ways is it used.
Go raibh maith agaibh!
Cáit.

A Chait, a chara,

Chapter 2, Section vii of Ó Siadhail's "Learning Irish" (3rd edition) gives the following for the autonomous form:

quote:

This form expresses the idea 'one is' or 'people (in general) are'. It is autonomous, that is, it stands on its own, needing no specific subject.

For the verb "bí" (to be) Ó Siadhail indicates that the positive and negative forms in the present tense are "táthar" and "níltear" respectively.

For example, to say "one is not content here" you would have "Níltear sásta anseo anois."

The automous form exists for other tenses (past and future, etc) and moods, e.g. conditional, and also for verbs in general, not just the verb "bí."

I think the major point to understand about the autonomous form is that it is used when we don't need to talk about a particular person or persons. That is, if you want to communicate that a person, in general, would be such and such then use the automous form. I think it's closest form in English is when we use "one" for the subject, as in the example above.

There's a lot more to the autonomous form, but I hope this at least gives you an idea of it's meaning and use.

Le meas,

Dáithí

It's also used to translate the English passive voice.

For example:

Óladh uisce inné!

(somebody) drank water yesterday = water was drunk yesterday!

A Chait, a chara,

Larry and Dáithí are right as rain, mar is gnáth. Let me elaborate just a bit.

Irish used to have both the passive voice and autonomous forms of verbs. However, the autonomous form replaced the passive voice in Irish a milennium or so ago. As you recall, English verbs usually have an active and a passive voice. The active voice is used when the subject of the sentence is doing the action of the verb, e.g.,

1.) Active Voice: Luaidh murdered Aonghus.

On the other hand, the passive voice is used when the action is done to the subject of the sentence, e.g.,

2.) Passive Voice: Luaidh was murdered by Aonghus.

Luaidh, the subject of both examples above, is doing the killing in the active voice example, while Aonghus, the object of both sentences, is doing the killing in the Passive Voice example.

Putting the first example into Irish is no problem.

1.) Faí Gníomhach:Dhúnmharaigh Luaidh Aonghus.

We have to stop for a second to think about what we want to convey before we put the second example into Irish.

Do we want to convey the fact that Luaidh is dead. Are we talking about Luaidh being in a state of rigor mortis? Oh, and by the way Aonghus did it. If so, then we might use this verbal adjective form of the verb.

2.a.)Verbal Adjective Form = Describe a state of being: Bhí Luaidh dúnmharaithe ag Aonghus.

On the other hand, do we want to emphasize the fact that Luaidh was murdered, a murder most foul?! He was cut down in the flower of his youth. It was heineous crime, a despicable action. If we want to talk about murder, then we can use the autonomous form of the verb.

2.b.)Autonomous Form = Describe an action: Dúnmharaíodh Luaidh.

The problem is that we can not charge the murder to Aonghus in this form, because what we really said was

Someone (or someones, we don't know which) murdered Luaidh.

We can add another sentence which fingers Aonghus, if we like.

It is difficult to make this make this distinction between describing a state of affairs or describing an action because English usually does not make a distinction. It is important to make this distinction because Irish does.

There are a couple of pages at this site that explain the mechanics of the autonomous form.

(Message edited by lúcas on March 15, 2005)

Ar son dé ná bí do mo mharú! Ná ag marú Lughaidh ach oiread.

Níl an difríocht tuairimí eadrainn baileach chomh mór sin.

Dhúnmharaigh duine duine. Man killed in homicide.

Go ndruidtear béal Lúcais - May one shut up Lucas' mouth (autonomous form of the subjunctive, because there's an unknown subject).

(jokin')

Dhúnmharaigh Lughaidh féasóg a Aonghus leis an rásúr!

Bhuel, níl mé ag gáire mar tá an fhéasóg móir ar mo thon!

tá féasóg ormsa féin fosta (ar m’aghaidh, chan ar mo thóin :-D) ;)

tóineanna na mná

Are they in the genitive or the nominative? I'll have them in the vocative!

'dj@ks - I suggest you take a razor to your féasóg since it interferes with your ability to think. Bi curamach, you may perform a lobotomy!

Abide rabatheber habave aba frebee bobottable abin frobont above mabee thaban aba prebefrobontable lobobobotobomoby!

Mack,
yes I'm compleatly hatter mad, and like ma man, Jason Timberframe, 'I'm lovin' it'!

Look at the mad loons on this thread. Company is great, whatever your affliction!

Go raibh maith agat a Dáithí. That helps me a lot. I don't have an Irish learning book just yet. The one I did have turned out to be Scottish Gaelic and didn't help me at all except for some of the idioms. But that really does help.

A Larry, a chara. Thanks. That clears things up a bit. All the tenses and what translates to what in english makes it hard. It almost seems as if had I started out with German or something as my first language it would have been easier.

A Lúcas, a chara. My grammar has never been my strong point, but thanks for explaining it step by step for me.

Go raibh maith agaibh!
Cáit.

Tá fáilte romhat.

Do ndéana a mhaith duit, a Cháit.

Ádh mór.

Tá fáilte romhat, a Cháit.

Dáithí